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7.31.2012

Dance music is at an all time high. It's been in heavy rotation on the radio, in stores, at malls, everywhere. So I beg the question, if or when is it all going to end?

As if wasn't obvious already, I love Electronic Dance Music, and have been a fan since the late 90s. It was a time when people were asking, "what the hell are you listening too? It's just a bunch of repetitive beats." Lo and behold, it is now one of the biggest genres of music out there.

I've heard many early non-adapters state that it will fade away just like Disco did. Maybe so, but even Disco has elements in today's music. There's even a new genre form Nu-disco, that's pretty popular... but that's getting off note.

Deadmau5 recently said in a Rolling Stone Interview:

"Just 120 bpm with a fucking kick drum on every quarter note" – but he's
been trying to get Dave Grohl to remix one of his own songs. "Because
fuck dance music, you know?"

This explosion of Dance Music in recent years, has made it accessible to everyone. And unfortunately, it has made it accessible to boring, uncreative, let's join-the-bandwagon, type of people. So that's why we hear a lot of Pop songs that rehash very bland Dance Music beats in hopes of attaining the current mass target audience. You know those artists. I won't name them, but it's literally just crap. Come on, "Autotune was so 5 years ago!" I'm not saying you can't use it now, but your have to do something different with it.

You should really be pushing the genre.

The other problem with Dance Music is that it is becoming really over-saturated with demand. But in reality, there are only so many name EDM artists out there. I mean, there are more and more festivals, like EDC Las Vegas, New York, HARD, Electric Zoo, and so forth, which is good for the economy, but soon that bubble will burst. How many times can you watch David Guetta, Afrojack, Skrillex, and others headline the same festivals year in and year out? Are they gonna start headlining every damn music festival too? I know they are making money, and doing what they can because you never know when it might end. However, there's only so much of them. I think the masses will start to wear out soon, especially in today's ADD society.
Don't you think?

This, is where a festival like Coachella has legs, because they're an overall music festival and can get headlining acts from all over the music world, not just EDM. They can book lessor name and even up-and-coming EDM artists and still do well. However, this is not an ad for Coachella so...

As for EDM in the Pop world itself, like anything else, it will evolve. Instead of every Pop label trying to rip off the David Guetta sound, we'll probably see an emergence in something more complex (like the sounds of Zedd or Porter Robinson or Madeon), or maybe taking it a back and showcasing the raw vocals a bit more but still keeping a strong electronic instrumentation (like Alex Clare). Too me, this is why like acts Adele, Gotye, Alex Clare, and the like, stand out so much now... because not only are they good artists, they're a breath of fresh air in the midst of all this over-saturated Pop music (all genres included).

Predicting the end of Dance Music? It will never happen. But I can totally see it changing in the next year and possibly even be slowing down.